Avoiding the annual “Yearbook headache”

Does your business produce a Yearbook each year? Ever have problems with creating it? If you answered ‘Yes’ to these two questions, then you’re not alone. Creating a Yearbook can be a huge hassle, and when not supported by your staff, it can also be a huge sap to everybody’s morale. So – how can you avoid that this year?

Below is a six step plan I follow; experience has taught me to stick with it if I want a headache-free Yearbook. And as each step is far too large to explain in this one post, this marks the beginning of a series on ‘The Headache-free Yearbook”. My six steps are:

1. Plan. A lot. And communicate this effectively.
2. Start writing, Day 1 of Week 1.
3. Get those photos happening!
4. Check, modify and recheck as you go.
5. Remember, the buck stops with you.
6. Don’t rely on the tools!

A quality Yearbook takes time to create. Teamwork helps. So does helpful advice, and a plan to follow. I love producing quality work, and I also enjoy challenging myself to improve each and every time. Each post in this series details my ‘Yearbook process’, but I’d love to also hear your thoughts, comments, and suggestions on how I can do this better!

CC Image courtesy jugbo at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jugbo/416097099/

Top ideas from #iPadexplore – Part 2 of 2

#iPadExplore – more good stuff that I didn’t get to in my last post…

1. Apps, and App-cessories

Time Timer

Explain Everything

Puppet Pals

DropVox

Camera+

PhotoMess (pictured – using the images I took today at the conference)

WaterMyPhoto

Videolicious

iTimeLapsePro

Prezi Viewer

Disney App Mates

Game Changer – Game Board for iPad

Piano Apprentice

iBooks Author

iMovie

dotEPUB

QR Codes

Tattoo You

Creative Book Builder

Book Creator for iPad

Avid Studio

Reel Director

Popplet

2. Links

Todaysmeet.com

Prezi.com

Edmodo.com

simple.wikipedia.org

3. Lists (well, it should actually be in the singular…)

Presenters at the conference – definitely worth following on twitter. They’re at:

http://twitter.com/#!/KRidwyn/ipadexplore-presenters/members

(and deepest apologies to Liz Ratcliffe – Sorry, but I couldn’t find you!)

Tweeting a conference

Last week, I attended my first conference in a number of years. In fact, I have a feeling that the last one I attended was the Middle Years Schooling Association (MYSA) conference at Jupiters Casino, back in 2007. I was (just) pregnant with my middle child, who is now 4. Wow! That really *was* some time ago!

A lot has changed as conferences go. I read somewhere a couple of years back that “conferences can be awkward – but never for a twitterer”… and I realized the truth of this today.

I shook hand with people that I had interacted with online, but had never met face to face. I laughed as people recognized me from my twitter photo, or my handle (let’s face it, “Ceridwyn” is rather a unique kind of name!) and I felt as though I was more comfortable in a strange situation than I had been at such events in the past.

Then it came session time, and workshop time, and I was finally able to engage in tweeting the conference happenings to my followers… again, something I had never before done, as this was my first conference since I joined twitter. (Come to think of it, twitter didn’t even exist during my last conference! That’s pretty bad, hey, that it’s been so long ‘between drinks’!)

So back to my story, I tweeted away madly and probably bored my followers stupid with my #iPadexplore tweets. I wondered later at the whole ettiquete thing with regard to tweeting a conference. How much is too much? When does it become spam? Or if you don’t tweet enough, is that indicative that the conference is a bit of a dud one? Questions for which I don’t have any answers. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on the matter?

Things are looking up…

The idea of the High School Library holds quite a bit of excitement for me. As an aspiring soon(ish)-to-be-qualified Librarian, the challenge of engaging teenagers with reading is something to which I may reasonably look forward to, one day.

Source: flickr.com via Randy on Pinterest

 

 

Just think of it – those young minds taught to enquire effectively, to understand clearly about their world, and to dream big regarding how to change this world – hopefully, for the better.

That’s been the aim behind these entries this last couple of weeks. How to use even just a few of the multitudinous number of Web 2.0 tools, to improve the High School Library – into a place where not only is it seen to be a place of relevance, but that it might actually become the place of choice for teenagers seeking information. This would be much more preferable than their turning to just a simple google / Wikipedia search!

Using RSS feeds, explaining and teaching about copyright and Creative Commons, leveraging the hundreds of thousands of wikis for collaborative learning, going mobile (as in, connecting with patrons ‘on the go’ – where they are) and even using gaming as a valid tool, were all ideas explained in this High School Library series.

In my opinion, it’s just so important to capture the minds of the children – especially in a day and age where information is ubiquitous, and not all information is accurate or free from bias. If our children can be taught that google and Wikipedia do not hold all the answers, and that discernment of information is a valuable if not crucial skill to have, then our future as a whole society, looks better.

Would you agree?

Improve your Library’s reputation: use RSS feeds

How did you view your High School Library? If you’re among the majority, you saw it as a repository of books and ‘some other stuff’; dry words on dry paper; a place that you would voluntarily enter only if you were in Lower Primary, or one of the few Seniors in the Debating Team. How sad. How can this reputation be changed?

One solution is to enlist the help of RSS. Below is a 4 step plan; implementing it should enhance the profile of the Library.

1. Subscribe to RSS feeds from websites which students are interested in.

By subscribing to feeds from sites that are popular with kids, internet terminals within the four walls of the Library become places where students want to be, so they can keep up with the latest information. They can then be ‘the first of their friends to share’ this information. What prestige! (Talking about their discovery with their classmates, also helps to increase their sense of importance – and get the message out there that these RSS are now available in the Library.) Unfortunately, the interest in the Library will probably begin and end here, unless the students are shown, and encouraged to use, the Library for other information-gathering purposes. How then to channel this enthusiasm into more scholarly pursuits?

2. Enlist the help of the teaching staff.

The Teacher Librarian needs to work closely with the teaching staff, informing them of the most current websites and blogs available, on the topics staff are covering, so that RSS subscriptions can be made to these sites as well. Once the teachers are aware of the availability of this wealth of resources, they are more than likely to use these, or at least refer to them, in their classes. And if assessment pieces require student research, it is to these same RSS feeds which students could turn.

3. Keep it current.

Teenagers interests change. Teaching topics change. Therefore, the RSS subscriptions should also change, to reflect currency. Otherwise, the Library quickly becomes irrelevant, and vacant, again. Keeping current with teaching topics is fairly easy, with regularly maintained Work Programs. Keeping current with teenagers is more difficult. One option is to use RSS again – in reverse. Set up a Library blog with an RSS feed, and encourage your customer base to subscribe. Not only can you receive immediacy in feedback to your posts, but you can also seek advice, obtaining valuable information about the opinions of your customers in the process.

4. Inform, inform, inform!

The task then becomes one of exposition – showing, regularly and effectively, the continually updated benefits that the Library has to offer those who are interested. And not just through the blog, and through the teaching staff, but through other channels as well. Noticeboards, newsletters, announcements at Assemblies, etc., all help to get the message ‘out there’ that the High School library is now a place of relevance and interest.

By implementing these 4 steps, the student body and teaching staff alike,  will probably place their faith in the Library as being no longer just a place for ‘old school technology’ and out-dated ideas. Instead, they will believe that it is a place where current information can be found, on sites of interest to them. Mission accomplished!

Image courtesy Allie Des Meules at http://pinterest.com/pin/11188699043725379/